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Garak had made a huge mistake.
The mistake was not, surprisingly enough, the fact that she had forgone her usual priority of saving her own skin to come up to Ops when the old Cardassian counter-insurgency program tripped somehow; while doing so was arguably the root of her current troubles - including the part where she was sitting here in very real danger as opposed to sitting in a shuttlecraft already well on its way out of the Bajoran sector - even if she did die here, she wouldn’t consider her attempt to rescue Julie a mistake.
Nor did she really think that suggesting the destruction of the life support system to prevent neurocine gas from flooding the habitat ring had been a bad idea, either. Yes, it had escalated the counter-insurgency program to the stage wherein the station would self-destruct in two hours, but the neurocine gas would have been released in five minutes. Two hours was better than five minutes.
No, the problem was that Garak had slipped up while attempting to spoof Dukat’s access codes, and now Dukat himself was here. On Deep Space 9. In Ops. With them. Strutting around like he still owned the place.
He actually had seemed genuinely distressed by the idea that Sisko had been vaporized while ordering a raktajino. However, Garak did not view this charitably at all.
Speaking of women he was unsubtly desperate to make illegitimate halfbreed babies with, Dukat had immediately attempted to exploit the situation by making ultimatums at Kira — he insisted on doing so in private, in Sisko’s office, but fortunately Sisko’s office was still visible from Ops so Garak stared unsettlingly at him through the window the whole time to make sure he behaved himself. Shortly afterwards Dukat’s beam-back to his ship was blocked and a recording of the late Legate Kell informed him that he was a coward and he would die here with the rest of them.
As hilarious as Dukat’s visible mortification was, the recording also informed them that access codes were rescinded and fail-safes eliminated; there was no longer a way to stop the station’s destruct sequence. No conventional way, anyway.
So really, Garak thought, the mistake wasn’t mine, but Dukat’s. And I expected nothing less from him.
“It’s not going to work, you know,” Garak said, interrupting Dukat’s peacocking at Kira.
Dukat stopped in his tracks. “What are you babbling about now?” he said with a sneer.
“I’m talking about Major Kira,” Garak said.
Kira, who had thus far been ignoring the Cardassians in the room, looked up. “What about her?” she said.
Garak leaned her head on her hand, still addressing Dukat, though now pitching her voice with all the condescending sweetness she could muster. “She's much too busy trying to save this station to be impressed by your incessant posturing. And even if she weren't, she has much better taste than to be attracted to you.“
One of Dukat’s eyes twitched. “You’re one to talk, Garak,” he snarled.
“What, are you still mad about your father? He had no one to blame but himself, he was a married man, after all— and come to think of it, so are you…”
“How typical of you,” Dukat said, refusing to let her circle the subject back around to Kira, “to assign blame to someone else instead of taking accountability for being a whore.”
Garak similarly refused to be provoked by him calling her that. “You’re just still bitter I kept declining your own advances.”
“I seem to recall several occasions where you didn’t.“
Garak shot to her feet. She was going to break this man’s neck—
“Garak,” Julie stopped her, grabbing her wrist before she could launch herself across the Ops table to maul Dukat. “This isn’t helping.”
Her voice was mild, reasonable, professional. Garak couldn’t stop herself from glancing at her incredulously; Dukat grinned, as though Julie was Garak’s personal handler whom had intervened solely on his behalf.
Dax leaned back slightly in his chair, as if accepting that the confrontation was over and no more juicy gossip could be inferred. Kira still looked slightly taken aback and somewhat shocked. (Did she really not realize that Dukat had been flirting with her? The ignorance of Bajorans continually surprised Garak.) “Anyway,” Dax said, “what about the supply grid?”
“Doctor, you should have let me kill him,” Garak muttered mutinously while Dax, Dukat, and Kira discussed their new plan to prevent the destruction of the station.
“I think that that would be politically complicated,” Julie said dryly.
“Only if the rest of us survive.”
“Garak…”
Garak frowned at Julie’s warning tone. What had she done now? Anyone with eyes could see that this entire situation was Dukat’s fault.
It wasn’t until later, after Commander Sisko and Chief O’Brien (and Commander Sisko’s son, too, apparently) had managed to redirect the overloaded main fusion reactor’s discharge into the station’s shield and consequently prevent the station itself from being significantly damaged, that Julie stopped being so stiff with Garak. They were back in their quarters by now - Dukat had been thrown off the station - and Garak had just finished explaining to Julie that it was unreasonable to expect her to “act professionally” around Dukat because she was, technically speaking, only a civilian.
Julie looked at her askance. “Did you really fuck Dukat’s father?”
“Dear!!”
“Just answer the question, Garak! And what about Dukat? What did he mean by ‘several occasions where-‘“
“Doctor, why would you even believe—“
“You’re the one who brought up his father first.”
She had a point. Garak tried a different tack. “It was a long time ago, darling.”
“I thought you...“ Julie paused, as if considering her words carefully. “I thought you didn’t like men. In that way.”
“I don’t.”
“Then—“
“It wasn’t my idea.”
Garak had made another mistake. That was the exact wrong thing to say; in Julie’s Federation mind, she may as well have just said “It wasn’t my choice”; strictly speaking, this was not untrue, but she would have rather the station blown up than have to endure Julie thinking she had been victimized when she’d really just been serving the state.
The same state that had thrown her out, which was why she was still here, on DS9, when Dukat had got to go home.
“I’m sorry,” Julie said, sincerely.
Garak scowled. This was not a conversation she wanted to have. She didn’t even want to be here. She’d take even Dukat’s ship, if necessary, if only she could. “As I said, Doctor, it was a long time ago.”
“What happened?”
She really expected her to answer! Looking at her with her big sparkly eyes like that! Garak wanted to scream. “There’s very little to the story, dear Doctor. Merely the sordid tale of a sad man whose ambition outweighed his patriotism and his pathetic son who thought he was entitled to anything and everything his father had. Men are simple, nhemeni. Don’t forget that.”
“So you seduced the older Dukat for information and let the younger Dukat have his way with you to avoid blowing your cover,” Julie guessed. It was an accurate summary of events. Garak would not be telling her that.
“You have a very active imagination,” she said instead, composing herself enough to offer her girlfriend a patient smile.
Julie looked skeptical. “Just… did it ever happen here? On DS9?”
Yes. “No.” Once, in a holosuite. Dukat had tried to have her executed afterwards. “If it happened, which it didn’t, it would have happened back on Cardassia Prime, when we were both much younger than we are now.” Dukat had gotten orders from the top - or from Tain, reading between the lines - that he wasn’t allowed to kill Garak. Garak frankly wished that he had gone through with it anyway. It had been a humiliating experience for both of them.
(And that was probably why Tain had forced Dukat to keep her alive.)
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Julie said again, taking Garak’s hand.
Shut up. Shut up, shut up. “There’s no need to worry about my past, dear.” Just leave me alone. “Dukat’s like that with every woman he knows, even the ones who work for him. I have no idea how his wife puts up with it.” I want to go back to Cardassia. I want to die.
Julie suggested they go to Quark’s for dinner tonight, forestalling Garak’s mental breakdown just a little bit longer.
Considering how often these sorts of station-wide crises had been occurring ever since Starfleet moved in, it was not at all surprising that the only reaction anyone had to that counter-insurgency program business over the next few days was merely to gossip about it, and quickly forget about it entirely. By the following week everyone had moved on. Visitors to the station weren’t even told about it. (Garak found that sad; she enjoyed the horrified reaction of newcomers to DS9 hearing about such-and-such incident being told to them as a funny relatable story when it was objectively quite traumatic. Unfortunately, after the rest of the promenade merchants had moved on, Garak could no longer do this herself as she wouldn’t be caught dead spreading old news as though it were still a hot topic.)
In retrospect Garak had committed something of a fallacy in assuming that because everyone had moved on, the consequences - as frankly little as they were - of the incident had already played out. The program, now identified, was excised from the station’s computer; nobody was talking about it anymore; Dukat’s ultimatum was ignored so thoroughly that the Bajoran provisional government never even got wind of it; Julie had not again attempted to broach the subject of Garak’s past affairs with two generations of Dukats.
At least not to her.
She had to hear from Quark of all people that Julie had lobbied Sisko to ban Dukat from the station — arguing that such a move would in fact be legal if the ban was explicitly about Dukat as an individual and not related to the fact that he was a Cardassian gul, and even going so far as to suggest that Sisko request an assigned Cardassian liaison or ambassador or whatever the hell to have an “official” point of contact who was anybody but Dukat.
“As if the Bajorans would ever go for that,” Quark had laughed.
“Indeed,” Garak said, smiling awkwardly.
She was going to kill that little slut.
Julie worked the late shift that night and didn’t return to their quarters until well after 0300 hours; Garak had stayed awake the whole night waiting for her, sitting in a chair and glaring at the door until Julie finally stepped through it. She immediately seemed rather taken aback at finding Garak not only still up but obviously angry.
“What did I do now?” she said helplessly.
“I heard about your proposal to Commander Sisko.”
“About Dukat? Oh god, here we go…”
Garak fumed. “What right do you have to-“
“Don’t even start with that, Garak!” Julie said, walking straight past her and heading for the refresher. “I don’t want to hear it. I did what I thought was right. Sisko didn’t take me seriously.”
“As well she shouldn’t!” Garak snapped, getting up to follow.
“I don’t want Dukat on this station - I don’t want him anywhere near you.” The refresher door slid shut behind her, before Garak.
Garak curled her lip at it. “My dear, you are being patently ridiculous. You tried to convince Sisko to make policy changes that would have serious political repercussions—“ she heard the sonic shower start up and raised her voice, “—over a made-up scenario that only exists in your own head!”
“You as good as told me what happened,” Julie shouted back.
“I outright denied it!”
“Yes, exactly!”
“Dear, if this was some kind of reverse-psychology ploy to make you jealous, then I could have at least picked a better-“
“I’m not jealous! I’m concerned!“
Garak hissed angrily to herself, knowing that Julie was telling the truth. The fact that humans did not regard jealousy and possessiveness as romantic like Cardassians did was something she and Julie had discussed before; nonetheless, Garak would have liked to make Julie jealous sometime but had not yet had any opportunity to do so. There really wasn’t anyone on the station that Julie would plausibly view Garak as being potentially more interested in them than in her. As for Dukat — if this had been a bout of territorialism and not just overweening bleeding-heart Federation histrionics, then Garak would have considered the whole situation a win.
It really was starting to feel like Garak never got any wins.
“You have no reason to be concerned!” she snarled at the door.
“The more you deny it, Garak, the more concerned I am!”
Furious, Garak overrode the refresher door lock and stormed inside. Julie, who was (unsurprisingly) standing naked in the middle of the shower stall only stared at Garak blankly for a second before backing up against the wall when Garak flung the shower door open.
“There is nothing between Dukat and I! What happened before I met you has no bearing on our lives now!” Garak yelled at her, looming in the shower entryway and keeping Julie hemmed in. “There is no reason to be concerned, and certainly no reason to attempt to drag other people into it! Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is for me?!”
“I didn’t say it had anything to do with you,” Julie protested, “I told Sisko that a patient of mine told me that Dukat raped her in the past — which is technically true, isn’t it?”
Garak was so incensed that she hardly even noticed the fact that Julie had employed Garak’s favorite semantical trick to her commanding officer. “You and your Federation obsession with calling every mildly unpleasant sexual experience ‘rape’!”
“But you didn’t choose to have sex with Dukat, did you? You didn’t want to? It was against your will?”
“What does that matter!”
“Garak—“
“Do you think that I’m not ashamed that I failed to properly reject him?” Garak snapped, jabbing a finger at Julie, who mostly just looked bewildered. “Do you think I’m proud of the fact that I didn’t fight back! That I just let him-“
“Garak, it wasn’t your fault! You-”
“Shut up! I don’t care if you humans never want to take accountability for what you allow to happen to you - but leave me out of it, please! I could have snapped his neck to keep his hands off me, but I didn’t!!”
“Were you really in a position to kill Gul Dukat?“ Julie said incredulously.
Garak had not been, but that wasn’t relevant right now. “What does it matter?” she demanded. “After all this time, what does it change if I take your Federation view of rape or not?”
Julie folded her arms across her bare chest. “If you won’t admit what happened,” she said, clearly trying to sound reasonable, “then you’ll never get the help you-“
“How does considering myself a victim help me any?” Garak cut her off, sneering. “How is it better to see myself as… as a hapless, passive object to be acted upon, as opposed to a fully autonomous participant in a mutual bad decision?”
“Because you didn’t make a decision,” Julie argued. “He forced you. You’ve made that clear, even if you won’t directly admit to it.”
“Ha! I suppose you imagine he violently grabbed me and pinned me down! I assure you, Doctor, it was the same clumsy seduction he thinks will eventually work on Major Kira. The difference is that the Major would be the one the employ violence upon him if he goes too far, whereas I-“
“—probably would have been killed if you’d angered Dukat like that,” Julie said bluntly. “Unless you mean to say that you still had some kind of legal protection from Dukat, as an exile. Or that the Obsidian Order typically just forgives agents who fail their assignments.”
Garak almost flinched. Julie was getting too close to the real reason behind her exile. “I was never in the Obsidian Order,” she said automatically.
“Garak.”
“…can’t you just accept that Cardassians and humans are different in this regard, dear?” Garak said, suddenly exhausted. She stepped back from the shower.
Julie followed her, grabbing a towel and wrapping herself in it as she went. “Garak,” she said, her voice gentle now, “our cultural standards - or at least whatever standards you were raised under - may be different, but I don’t think you’d be reacting like this if it weren’t as traumatic as you keep trying to convince me it wasn’t. Trying to convince yourself it wasn’t, rather. I’m sorry you’ve had to live with this by yourself for so long.”
“You do realize, of course, that nobody on this station is in any position to keep Dukat away from it?” Garak said. “And that if I don’t consider it rape, certainly he doesn’t either? For a Cardassian, the fact that I didn’t try to kill him to keep him away from me is the same as your human ‘consent’…”
“I… understand that,” Julie said with a grimace. “Certainly I’ve heard as much from Bajorans — well, the fact that the Cardassian concept of consent doesn’t really translate well across species lines is one thing, but between two Cardassians… Garak, you’re obviously upset…”
“It was years ago,” Garak muttered.
Julie squeezed her arm. “I hope you don’t think I think any less of you for this,” she said, looking utterly sincere. “I don’t care if Dukat ‘got there first’, or anyone else, really - what matters to me is that you don’t have to put up with seeing someone who hurt you in a place where you’re supposed to feel safe.”
“I don’t feel safe anywhere, Doctor.”
That was perhaps too much, too frank and too raw of an admission, but thankfully Julie didn’t overreact this time and only frowned slightly at Garak before squeezing her arm again. “Do you at least feel safe with me?” she asked.
Slowly, at length, Garak nodded.
Julie smiled at her. It was like the first wash of sunlight over a western sand dune after a long, cold night. Garak finally relaxed. “That’s a good first step,” Julie said. “Now let me get dressed and we can both go to bed, alright? It’s ridiculously late.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Garak said, and unceremoniously picked Julie up.
“Hey— oh, Garak…” Julie let her towel fall to the floor in favor of wrapping her arms around Garak’s neck. “Fine, if you insist.” She kissed Garak’s cheek. “I love you, you know.”
“I’m aware, caroci.”
“And if Dukat ever bothers you again—“
“Last I heard you subscribed to something called the ‘Hippocratic Oath’, Doctor,” Garak said.
Julie pouted. “The Hippocratic Oath is only for patients.”
“Then consider the fact that any Cardassian could snap you in half like a dried rulot stalk.”
“I think you’d be surprised,” Julie said.
“Mmhmm. I’d just rather put this whole sorry conversation behind us.”
“If you’re sure…”
Garak dropped Julie on the couch. “I am sure,” she said. “You are, however, sleeping here tonight.”
Julie sat up. “What? Hey! Why?!”
“Because you’ve been unforgivably pushy and irritating about this, dear,” Garak said, leaving for the bedroom.
Julie stared after her incredulously, then seemed to remember that she was naked and hurriedly pulled the throw blanket over herself. “I’m not the one who just cornered me in the shower and yelled at me! That was terrifying! I thought you were going to tear my head off!”
“Then you should consider yourself lucky,” Garak said, “that you weren’t subject to a Cardassian solution to the Cardassian problem you so arrogantly involved yourself in. Good night, Doctor.”
“Garak, come on—“
Garak closed and locked the bedroom door. Tomorrow morning would be better. She just had to keep telling herself that.